Cover

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Sitting on the porch of his California home back in 1997, gazing down
at the forested valley below, veteran Sierra Club activist Martin Litton
had offered me a trip to see Diablo Canyon firsthand. Given that
Diablo, a nuclear site owned by Pacific Gas and Electric on the central California...

Acknowledgments

You should always visit a place that you hope to write about. For
the chance to explore the Diablo lands, I thank Sally Krenn and Sue
Benech, biologists on contract to Pacific Gas and Electric Company in
the late 1990s. Sue kindly provided me with a tour of the coastline, stopping
off to watch sea otters, brown pelicans, and a wily coyote. Dedicated...

Introduction

From its beginnings at Leggett, 190 miles north of San Francisco,
California Highway 1 follows the contours of the coast so closely
that, at times, it nearly falls into chilly Pacific waters. On automobile
maps, a red line denoting highway and a blue trace indicating shoreline
together mark the limits of westerly travel on continental American soil—or,
more accurately, asphalt...

One. Diablo Canyon Wilds

If you like to hike and want to experience the diversity of landscape and
life that characterize this spectacular area, join docents for a seven-mile
round-trip along the Pecho Coast Trail,” invited a 1990s trail leaflet distributed
by pg&e volunteers. By calling 805 /541-trek, visitors could reserve
their space on a guided walk across the south side of the Pecho headland—
their chance to discover firsthand the intertwining history of nature...

Two. From Cattle Ranch to Atomic Homestead

In the immediate years following World War II, Diablo remained a landscape
of anonymity. Traditional small-time ranching and agricultural pursuits
continued on the coastline. A slow pace of change, together with
Diablo’s geographical isolation, meant that few citizens had reason to pay
heed to events on the headland. In the 1960s control of Diablo passed from one pioneer to another. The meaning of Diablo shifted dramatically...

Three. Local Mothers, Earthquake Country, and
the “Nuclear Center of America”

Converting Diablo Canyon into a viable nuclear complex officially
began in June 1968 after Pacific Gas received its construction permit
for the Unit 1 reactor (the permit for Unit 2 followed in 1970). During
the first year, the site area was leveled and paved, and land excavated where
buildings would soon arise. Diablo Creek played host to the plant’s switchyard...

Four. The Showdown

In the summer of 1976 a new style of environmental protest surfaced on
the East Coast of the United States. A collection of citizen groups and local
environmental organizations formed the Clamshell Alliance in response
to plans for a nuclear plant at Seabrook, New Hampshire. Legal opposition had failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the Public Services Company for two 1,150-megawatt reactors on the coast, and with construction about to begin, the Alliance chose nonviolent...

Five. Living Alongside the Machine

She’s back!!—but only to face . . . disaster at diablo reactor!” read
the front cover of a 1982 Marvel comic. A menacing combination
of a nuclear plant waiting to go on-line, a pile of uranium, and an
evil masked man known as “The Negator” heralded the return of Marvel
superheroine She-Hulk. The Negator planned to “destroy la in atomic holocaust”
by sabotaging the nuclear plant on the Pecho Coast. “Diablo reactor
shall encounter—the China Syndrome,” the masked man threatened. Atomic
matters were hardly new to the pages of Marvel Comics...

Six. Reconnecting the Headland

Whether out of an ingrained desire for order, control, or property,
we, as a people, love to parcel up territory, compartmentalize the
natural, and carve out boundaries in the land. Recall the great
stampede westward in the nineteenth century, where thousands of emigrants
rushed to stake their claim to 160-acre plots; the orderly grid design of modern
cities replete with commercial, residential, and industrial zones; or the...

Conclusion. The Energy Bomb and
Conservation Fallout

Once described by the Sierra Club as both “a treeless slot” and “the last
example of pastoral California coast,” Diablo Canyon shows how
far conservationists can disagree over environmental issues. Club
directors locked horns over coastal wilderness and atomic development. But
contrasting takes on the worth of Diablo were hardly confined to the...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.